Chain of Gold
by Moonlight and Ashes
Summary: "We who are immortal, we are chained to this life by a chain of gold, and we dare not sever it for fear of what lies beyond the drop." After Will's death in 1937, Tessa must learn to accept and understand her own immortality, to embrace the chain of gold that she has despised for so long.


**Spoilers for Clockwork Princess! Read at your own risk :) Author is not responsible for any consequences, eg. emotional breakdowns and excessive fangirling.**

 **All characters go to Cassandra Clare, as do a few quotes which I'm sure you will recognize.**

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 _The ballroom is grand and spacious and beautifully decorated. Designs of gold top white marble columns, and banners proudly displaying Shadowhunter family crests hang from its arched ceiling. An ornate chandelier with finely cut crystals dripping from it glimmers, casting rainbow light through the room. Large windows framed by heavy curtains show a glimpse of a silvery moon in the dark night sky._

 _There are hundreds of people, all in their best finery, dancing to sweet violin music, as Tessa looks on from the side, watching and waiting; although what she is waiting for, she isn't sure._

 _There is a silent tap from behind, and Tessa spins around, startled. Will, like a shadow in his black and white evening dress, stands there, the very picture of elegance. The tailored suit he is wearing brings color to his pale cheeks and a softer curve to the sharp hollows of his throat. His blue eyes are darker than usual as he extends a hand._

" _Will you do me the honor of favoring me a dance, Tessa?"_

 _Tessa smiles, a rush of warmth coursing through her. "Of course." She slips her gloved hand in his._

 _Will guides her out to the dance floor, and suddenly all the other dancers are gone, only the two of them remaining. They glide across the wide room, one of his hands on her waist and the other clasped in hers._

 _The melody is high and lilting and hauntingly sweet. Their dance starts out slow, but as the music becomes higher and faster and almost frenzied, Tessa finds herself whirling faster and faster to keep up with it. Her hair pulls free from its fastenings as she spins under Will's upraised arm; she is dizzy now, and she knows she should stop, but the music catches at her, pulls her and doesn't let go, and she can feel her blood pounding fast and hard in her ears, and -_

 _And then the dance is over, far too soon. The music comes to an abrupt stop, leaving behind only echoes and silence. Tessa steps back from Will, and only then does she realize how hard she was clutching at him, as if she were afraid he would disappear._

 _Will takes her hand and raises it to his face. "Save the last dance for me, Tess." There is the softest brush of lips on her glove, and she can feel it through her whole body, as if it was her bare hand he had touched. Then he turns without a sound and walks towards the great double doors at the end of the room._

 _Tessa frowns as he walks away; there is something that tells her that he must not leave the ballroom, that something terrible would happen. She takes another glance at him, and finds that his figure looks oddly blurred at the edges, like a photograph spoiled by water. And she realizes: He is fading away before her very eyes, his body becoming warped and misty and indistinct._

 _She screams for him to stop, because with every step he takes, he blurs just a bit more, but he continues on as if he hadn't heard. Tessa runs across the ballroom to him, but there has never been a greater distance than what separates them now, not even when he was in London and she in Wales. She knows it is futile, but she runs anyway because she cannot bear to simply stand and watch._

 _Will is nearing one of the great windows of the ballroom when she reaches him, skirts billowing out around her. He is almost a shadow now, a mere trace of what he used to be. Only his eyes retain their color, as blue the waves that crash into the white cliffs of Dover. Then even that fades and is gone, swallowed by the black night outside the ballroom, and Tessa is left with only a whisper of his voice._

" _Dwi'n dy garu di am byth, Tessa."_

Tessa awakes with a scream, sitting bolt upright, clutching the covers to her chest. For a second she doesn't realize where she is, on an unfamiliar lumpy mattress with woolen blankets twisted around her legs.

Then she remembers that she is staying at Magnus's flat, and the past comes crashing down on her. Sunlight filtering in through the windows on a hot summer day. The chatter of the family she had loved. The sound of a well-worn violin. Will's eyes, looking at her, only to close again. She starts to shake, sobs tearing their way out her mouth as she remembers.

There is the sound of running feet in the hallway; for a second Tessa thinks, illogically, that Will has somehow come, hearing her cries. But the door to the living room opens to reveal not Will, but Magnus. He is wearing a silk dressing gown over nightclothes, and looks distinctly annoyed at being woken up, but when he sees Tessa, holding her pearl bracelet to her heart, crying, he crosses the room and puts his arms around her.

Tessa sobs for a long time before she can pull herself together. "Why does it happen?" she whispers, putting her arms around herself and rocking back and forth. "Why did _he_ have to die and not me? Should I be punishing myself for that?"

Magnus looks her at, his cat-slit eyes full of sorrow in the darkness. "Remember what I said to you once? _We who are immortal, we are chained to this life by a chain of gold, and we dare not sever it for fear of what lies beyond the drop._

"I believe that in this world, everything happens for a reason. Perhaps you are held by a chain of gold for a reason, Tessa. Do not inflict pain on yourself simply because you are something they cannot be."

"I cannot see what that reason is, if there is even a reason for my immortality." Tessa could not, did not want to understand why she was the one who had lived, while her husband and children and family would all eventually age and die.

"I did not, either, a long time. And even now, I doubt myself, and think that immortality is nothing but a burden." Magnus had never sounded as world-weary as he did now.

"And what do you think the purpose of this chain of gold is?"

"Perhaps we are meant to be the keeper of memories. To live the good ones, to endure the harsh ones, to understand the dark ones. So that we can keep history from repeating."

Tessa sighs, and lies down again. She is not ready to deal with this, not with the wounds on her heart so fresh and raw, not with the loss so near.

Magnus rises to go. "The first one is always the hardest." he says, slowly, as if he is lost in some other, older, memory.

"The first?" Tessa shifts to look at him.

"The first one you love who dies." he says. "It gets easier, after."

Tessa curls up in the blankets tighter, as if trying to protect herself from an unseen force. Someday, nearly a century later, she will find joy in finding someone whom she thought she had lost forever. Someday, although the wound would never heal, she will find ways to cover it and keep it covered, until all that is left are happy, faded remembrances. Someday, she will rejoin the Shadowhunters again.

But this very moment, she does not know that, and is only struggling to get through one day, then the next, the the one after that. For Magnus had been correct. Whatever her losses, she was not yet ready to sever that chain of gold.

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 **I didn't mean for it to get so long. I was originally planning for it to be a minific of 400 - 500 words. But, well. Since when have I been good at following word limits?**

 **Please leave a review! Pretty please? You'll get a cookie if you do! Even if you just want to say that it was horrible and you hated it. I'll still jump up and down because it's a _review_. **

**Cheers,**

 **Moonlight and Ashes :)**


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